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ADDRESS 



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SOUTH CAROLINA. 



DeKvcrcd before the Republican Mass Meeting at Spartanburg, S. (I, October 17, 1876. 



COLUMBIA, Ss<$^ ** **%\ 

SUNDAY HERALD BO^K AND JOB OFFICER 

90hw M n 



1877. 



A. D D R E S S 



OF 






OF 



SOUTH CAROLINA 



Delivered before the Republican Mass Meeting- at Spartanburg, S. ft, October 17, 1876. 



COLUMBIA, S. C: 

PRINTED AT SUNDAY HERALD BOOK AND JOB OFFICE. 

1877. 



j 



DEC 2 3 1944 

SOURCE UNKNOWN 



PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION— 1870 



^ 



5 



Fellow-Citizens of the State of South Carolina : 
Lord Brougham has said "until time shall be no more will 
a test of the progress which mankind has made in wisdom 
and in virtue be derived from the veneration paid to the 
immortal name of Washington." My countrymen, the name 
of Washington stands like a Colossus upon the pages of his- 
tory — the "Father of his Country," the Cincinnatus of 
the west, who led his countrymen to victory and a nation to 
glory. Heedless of his voice of admonitory and paternal 
wisdom, the fierce strife of bitter sectionalism and disjunctive 
provincialism has brought woes unnumbered upon our once 
happy country, has crimsoned our land with the blood of 
thousands untimely slain, and has cast the dismal glare of 
barbarism over the face of fair America. In his farewell 
address to his countrymen our noble Washington said: "It 
will be worthy of a free and enlightened and, at no distant 
period, a great nation to give to mankind the magnanimous 
and too novel example of a people always guided by an 
exalted justice and benevolence." Again he said : " I have 
labored to discourage all kinds of local attachments and dis- 
tinctions of country by denominating the whole by the greater 
name of American." Oblivious of those ideas of "exalted 
justice and benevolence," forgetting the very name of 
"American" citizen, the attempt was made to trample in the 
dust the flag of our country, to tear into shreds its noble 
history, and to establish upon a corner stone of human slavery 
a southern sectional confederacy. For four long and bloody 
years, on more than a score of battle fields, did I strive to 
strike down the flag of my country, but there it floats still, 



4 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSMITH. 

the star spangled banner, over the land of the free and the 
home of the brave, and I thank God that I am here to-day 
to declare to you, my countrymen, that never again will I 
essay to strike with uplifted hand that noble ensign of free- 
dom. I thank God that I am here to-day to re-echo the 
words of that noble soldier General Robert E. Lee. Here 
are his words: "Secession is anarchy. If I owned the four 
million of slaves in the south, I would cheerfully emancipate 
them all to save the union." 

My countrymen, I come before you at a time when there 
are indications that dire calamities may again fall upon us; 
when the whole air seems bristling with savage threats; 
when the tramp of armed men seems to be resounding 
throughout our commonwealth. I would to God that this 
angry strife may cease, that this semblance of war may vanish 
and that arras in the hands of civilians may be thrown into 
the middle of the ocean. I would that by fair and temperate 
discussion the truth may be evolved in regard to the mighty 
political issues now before the people. I would that these 
noble words of Louis XIV to the Dauphin of France might 
be emblazoned in golden characters upon the sky above us, so 
that all might read and ponder them : " My son, do not follow 
my example with regard to war; endeavor to live in peace 
with your neighbors; follow always the most moderate coun- 
sels; endeavor to reduce the taxes; these are my last words; 
let them sink deep into your mind; remember that kings die 
like other men." 

To enable us properly to discuss and consider the political 
issues now before the people, it is necessary that we recur to 
the past. We must recollect that gloom, desolation, decay 
and death await those who ignore the past. We must study 
it. We must listen to its voice. We must remember that it 
is full of instruction and power, and that it is neither lightly 
to be disregarded nor arbitrarily dealt with. 

Now, what were the causes of our late war? In the lan- 
guage of Dr. Francis Lieber, I would answer, slavery, states 
rights doctrine and southern jealousy at northern progress. 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSMITH. 5 

The congress of the confederate states declared that because 
of the election by the people of the United States "of a 
president and vice-president hostile to the south and her insti- 
tutions the southern states withdrew from the union." " Her 
institutions," in the plural, means of course the one institu- 
tion of slavery, for the south was characterized by no other 
institution. Vice-President Stevens declared that slaverv 
was a social, moral and political benefit, and that the southern 
confederacy was founded upon the corner stone of slavery. 
The Saviour of the world, in his sermon on the mount, 
speaks of the foolish man who built his house upon the sand: 
"And the rain descended and the floods came, and the winds 
blew and beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the 
fall of it." The slaves in the southern statt-s were held by a 
tenure of force. Blackstone says that capture in war cannot 
reduce a person to slavery and make him property, and that 
a tenure by force gives no right of property in a human 
being. White men and white women were bought and sold 
by the Turks in Constantinople and in modern Barbary, and 
yet they were not property. We know, as a historical fact, 
that James Madison, that great and good man, a leading 
member in the federal convention, was solicitous to guard the 
language of the constitution of the United States so as not to 
convey the idea that there could be property in man. What 
says that great philosopher and legal writer, Dr. Francis 
Lieber? "The idea of making a man a slave, that is of 
subjecting all he has and is to the disposal of a master, who 
is not bound on his part to render anything in return, is at 
war with the first principles of bodies politic. Slavery can 
never be a legal relation. It rests entirely on force." When 
the southern confederacy was being founded upon that corner 
stone of slavery what was the opinion of the civilized world ; 
what was the opinion of the fathers of our glorious republic 
in reference to it? In the fifteenth century the parliament 
of Toulouse declared that every man who entered the king- 
dom of France should become free. In the sixteenth century 
the court of King's bench in England declared to the same 
effect. The foremost minds in America were opposed to it. 



6 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSMITH. 

Hear what that noble patriot George Washington, the first 
president of the United States, said in reference to it: "There 
is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than 1 do to 
see a plan adopted for ihe abolition of slavery." John 
Adams, the second president of the United Slates, said: "I 
have held the practice of slavery in such abhorrence that I 
have never owned a negro or any other slave." Hear what 
Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, 
said: " With what execration should the statesman be loaded 
who permits one-half of the citizens to trample on the rights of 
the other, transforming one-half into despots and the other 
into enemies, destroying the morals of the one part and the 
love of country of the other." James Madison, the fourth 
president of the United States, said: "We have seen the 
mere distinction of color made a ground of the most oppres- 
sive dominion ever exercised by man over man." The views 
entertained by James Monroe, the fifth president of the 
United States, and by John Quincy Adams, the sixth presi- 
dent of the United States, were all in opposition to slavery. 
Major-Geueral Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the 
United States, in his address to the men of color on the 18th 
of December, 1814, at New Orleans, said: "Soldiers, from 
the shores of Mobile I collected you to arms. I invited you 
to share the perils and divide the glory of your white coun- 
trymen. I expected much from you. I knew that you 
loved the land of your nativity and that, like ourselves, you 
had to defend all that is most dear to man. But you surpass 
mv hopes. I have found in you that noble enthusiasm which 
impels to great deeds." That noble general, the Marquis de 
LaFayette, who came from the shores of France to aid our 
country in the struggle for independence, said: "I would 
never have drawn my sword in the cause of America could I 
have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery." 
Such, my countrymen, were the opinions of the noblest 
patriots this world has ever produced in reference to slavery, 
that corner stone upon which the southern confederacy was 
founded. Mr. Webster has said: "The lightning is strong, 
the tornado is strong, the earthquake is strong, but there is 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSMITII. i 

something stronger than all of these. It is the enlightened 
judgment of mankind." Founded upon slavery, the southern 
confederacy has gone down amid wreck and ruin, to rise no 
more forever, drenched with the blood of thousands untimely 
slain. 

The next cause of our late war was states rights doctrine, 
that disjunctive doctrine according to which each portion of 
our country, called a state, is sovereign in the highest sense, 
allowing us no nationality, no country, and consequently no 
national government. The leading secessionists urged the 
strange idea that the state was superior to the general govern- 
ment, that a part was greater than the whole, overlooking the 
fact that the United States had rights too, and greater rights 
than any single state. A double allegiance would be a fear- 
ful problem for a conscientious citizen and worse than the 
allegiance of the feudal times, which was a graduated allegi- 
ance but not a double or multiplied one. We cannot faith- 
fully serve two masters. The leading secessionists overlooked 
the fact that the constitution of the United States is a national 
work from beginning to end, conceived by the living national 
spirit of "one people" in spite of destructive provincialism. 
The instrument, says Dr. Lieber, is called a constitution, not 
articles. The word sovereign does not appear once. A 
national legislature, the members of which vote individually 
and personally, not by states, and an eminently national and 
individual executive in the person of one man are established ; 
and a majority of the people or of the states can oblige the 
smaller portion to adopt amendments to the constitution. 
No minority of sovereigns, however small, can be made sub- 
ject to a majority of sovereigns however large. This single 
fact would annihilate state sovereignty. We are a nation. 
Washington said: "That bantling — I had almost said mon- 
ster — state sovereignty." Alexander Hamilton said: "A 
nation without a national government is an awful spectacle." 
And yet Mr. Calhoun denied even the national character in 
the president of the United States, and allowed only a joint 
representation of the many different state sovereignties within 
his individuality, by what mysterious process it is impossible 



8 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSM1TH. 

for us to see. With him liberty appeared to consist in a 
warring opposition to the national government, and he openly 
declared the loosest possible confederacy the best of all gov- 
ernments while the whole world was agreed to consider it in 
modern times the worst, and confederations good only in as 
far as they unite and not as far as they sever. Mr. Calhoun 
even went so far as to contend that states should be admitted 
into the union by couples — one free and one slave state at a 
time — overlooking the fact that slavery has never been a 
stable svstem, but has always melted away before advancing 
civilization. It is strange that Mr. Calhoun never allowed 
the noble words of Patrick Henry to touch a chord in his 
breast when he said : " Where are your landmarks, your 
boundaries of colonies? They are all thrown down. The 
distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvaniaus, New York- 
ers and New England ers are now no more. I am not a 
Virginian but an Ame7'ican" Why did Mr. Calhoun not 
consider the warning wor^s of General Charles Cotesworth 
Pinckney, when he said: "Let us then consider all attempts 
to weaken this union by maintaining that each state is sepa- 
rately and individually independent as a species of political 
heresy, which may bring on us the most serious distresses." 
The ideas of Mr. Calhoun, in regard to government, do not 
appear to have emanated from any consideration for the real 
wants of the people, but his political course seems to have 
been dictated by an ambitious design to force his own peculiar 
and fanciful theories upon them. He lacked that lofty feel- 
ing for humanity which is so characteristic of the noble 
patriot. Said Mr. Wirt of Aaron Burr: "Civil life is 
indeed quiet upon its surface but in its bosom this man has 
contrived to deposit the materials which with the slightest 
touch of his match produce an explosion to shake the conti- 
nent." Happy indeed would it have been for South Carolina 
had she heeded the voice of that noble South Carolinian, the 
hero of Talladega, of Tohopeka and New Orleans, Major- 
General Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United 
States, when he said: "Take care of your nullifiers you have 
amongst you, those men who would sever and destroy the 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSM1TH. 9 

only good government on the globe, and that prosperity and 
happiness we enjoy over every other portion of the world; 
who would involve the country in civil war and all the evils 
in its train, that they might reign and ride on its whirlwinds 
and direct the storm. Let them meet the indignant frowns 
of every man who loves his country. The tariff, it is now 
known, was a mere pretext and disunion and a southern con- 
federacy the real object. The next pretext wdl be the negro 
or the slavery question." Happy indeed for South Carolina 
would it have been had she heeded the voice of warning of 
tint n^ble patriot Chief Justice John Belton 0'N«all, when 
he said: "Secession will be the ruin of South Carolina." 

The third cause of the war, says Dr. Lieber, was southern 
jealousy at northern progress — a fevering jealousy when it 
was perceived that civilization, number of population, the 
arts, education, the ships and trade, schools and churches, 
literature and law, manufactures, agriculture, inventions, 
wealth, comfort and power w< re rapidly finding their home 
at the north to the great disparagement of the south, weighted 
down by slavery, which nevertheless the south would not 
recognize as an evil. All periods of such developments or 
changes of power and influence from one portion of a country 
to auothcr, or from one class to another, have been periods of 
heartburning, but in this case the vaunting pride of the 
receding or lagging portion forbade them to acknowledge the 
cause. Like Pericles, with regard to the Patricians at 
Athens, the leading secessionists paid court to this unfounded 
prejudice against the north and fanned a flame which resulted 
in a wide spread conflagration. 

For the causes which I have enumerated our entire country 
was plunged into a bloody war, in which three millions of 
armed soldiers were engaged in the work of death. In the 
dreadful carnage which followed secession the best and purest 
young men of our entire country sank down into early graves. 
The war was fought mainly by those who had no part in 
bringing it on, while many of those who were instrumental 
in bringing about the contest took no part in the bloody con- 

2 



10 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSMITH. 

flict. Arc! so it has ever been. The men who make the 
quarrels are not the only men to fight. Upon this point 
what said that noble soldier General Robert E. Lee? Here 
are his words: "The position of the two sections which they 
held to each other was brought about by the politicians of 
the country. The great masses of the people, if they had 
understood the real question, would have avoided the war." 
Governor Orr said that in 18G0 there were not ten thousand 
secessionists in the statn of South Carolina, and yet a few 
violent secession leaders forced the people out of the union. 

I have referred particularly to the causes of our late war to 
show how untenable they were, because the democratic leaders 
have declared over and over again, since the war ended, that 
they never will admit that the cause itself failed and that the 
principles which gave it life were wrong. That the war 
which was inaugurated by violent sectional partisans for the 
causes enumerated should have utterly failed in its object was 
not unlooked for by the philosophical historian. The south- 
ern confederacy fell, and its fall is thus graphically described 
by McCabe in his "Life of General R. E. Lee:" "Up the 
ascent to the capital of the southern confederacy was the 
array, with its unbroken line of blue, fringed with bright 
bayonets. Strains of martial music, flushed countenances, 
waving swords, betokened the victorious army. Along the 
line of fire, in the midst of the horrors of a conflagration, 
increased by the explosion of shells left by the retreating 
army, through curtains of smoke, through t'-e vast aerial 
auditorium, convulsed with t''e commotion of frightful 
sounds, moved the garish procession of the grand army of 
the United States, with brave music and bright banners and 
wild cheers. Thus fell the capital of the southern confede- 
racy. It went down in a sea of suffering and sorrow, such as 
had never been known before." 

As the result of the bloody conflict of secession the supre- 
macy of the constitution and laws of the United States over 
the constitution and laws of any state was established and 
freedom flashed down upon four millions of slaves in the 
southern states. It came like a flash of golden light from 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WIKSMITH. 11 

heaven, and the republican party was triumphant. In the 
very hour of victory Abraham Lincoln, the humblest of the 
humble before his own conscience, and among the greatest 
before history, laid down his life for human freedom. Like 
Socrates, he died for the cause of truth. While contemplat- 
ing the triumph of ihe republican party upon the Held of 
battle we must not omit to consider the great ideas which 
hovered above the conflict, of a tins. When two armies meet, 
says Cousin, there is presented a much greater spectacle than 
that from which philanthropy (urns away her eves in horror. 
She sees only thousands o! men who arc about to Cut cadi 
other down. But here men are not the object of contention, 
but causes, the opposing spirit of an epoch, the different ideas 
which in an age animate and agitate humanity. Battles are 
the signal promulgation of the decrees of civilization itself. 
Thus Napoleon, after marching through Europe, and putting 
his foot upon the heads of kings and princes, said at Fontain- 
bleau, in the hour of his misfortune: "I am not conquered 
by coalesced armies but by liberal ideas." Tlie triumph of 
the republican party in the late conflict was the triumph of 
the union over disjunctive provincialism, of freedom over 
slavery, of northern progress over southern torpidity and 
exclusivenes<% 

When the war ended, the democratic leaders at the south 
utterly repudiated its results and proceeded to establish a 
galling system of peonage or serfdom upon the debris of 
slavery. In 1865 the democratic legislature of South Caro- 
lina enacted a monstrous law, known as the Black Code, 
among the provisions of which was the following: "The 
master shall have the right to inflict upon the servant such 
corporal punishment as he may think proper." Seeing the 
cruel spirit manifested at the south against persons of the 
dark class, the republican party of the nation, through the 
congress of the United States, adopted the reconstruction acts 
and amended the constitution of the United States, giving the 
right of suffrage and all the rights of American citizens to 
persons of the dark class. Even then, when the democratic 
leaders had shown such a violent hostilitv to the results of 



12 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WIXSMITH. 

the war, and when Senator Sherman, the author of the recon- 
struction acts, was urged to insert in them a sweeping clause 
of disfranchisement, he said, in the United States senate: 
"Men ought to be satisfied without further exactions from the 
late rebels. They had lost everything they held dear and the 
people of the north did not demand their disfranchisement." 
Notwithstanding the magnanimity of the national republican 
party, in removing political disabilities from the democratic 
leaders, they have kept up a fierce strife against the govern- 
ment of the United States, refusing to acknowledge in good 
faith the rights of citizenship conferred upon thp dark class, 
holding the reconstruction acts to be revolutionary, unconsti- 
tutional and void, and looking for their overthrow. They 
have declared that they never will admit that the cause of the 
southern confederacy failed, and that the principles which 
o-ave it life were wrong. These men have inaugurated a sys- 
tem of persecutions and outrages upon republicans by armed 
and disguised bands of midnight marauders which have 
shocked the civilized world. Of these outlaws, the Hon. 
Revcrdy Johnson, who was brought down from Maryland to 
defend them, was compelled to say: "I have listened with 
unmixed horror to some of the testimony which has been brought 
before you. The outrages proved are shocking to humanity ; 
they admit of neither excuse or justification; they violate every 
obligation which law and nature imposes upon men; they show 
that the parties engaged were brutes, insensible to the obligations 
of humanity and religion. The day will come, however, if it 
has not already arrived, ivhen they will deeply lament it. Even 
if justice shall not overtake them, there is one tribunal from 
which there is no hope. It is their own judgment — that tribu- 
nal which sits in the breast of every living man — that small, 
dill voice that thrills through the heart — the soul of the mind, 
and as it sjieaks gives happiness or torture — the voice of con- 
science, the voice of God. If it has not already spoken to 
them in tones which have startled them to the enormity of their 
conduct, I trust, in the mercy of heaven, that that voice will 
speak before they shall be called above to account for the trans- 
actions of this world. That it will so speak as to make them 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. G. WINSMITH. 13 

penitent, and that trusting in the dispensations of heaven, whose 
justice is dispensed with mer cy, when they shall be broughit before 
the bar of their great tribunal, si to speak, that incomprehensi- 
ble tribunal, tliere will be found in the /act of their penitence, 
or in their previous lives, some grounds upon which (rod may 
say pardon." 

I, too, join in the prayer of the great advocate, and trust 
when the great day comes, when thes-ecrets of all hearts shall 
be known, God may say to them pardon. 1 would also 
desire that <he lenders may be pardoned if they shall become 
penitent. I trust no monstrous apparition may rise before 
them to say "thou shalt see me ;it Phillipi." I trust they 
may never be compelled to exclaim "oh, coward conscience, 
how dost thou afflict me!" I trust they may never have to 
say "thou art too like the spirit of Banquo — down!" 

To-day, my countrymen, what do we behold in this nation? 
Two political parties arrayed against each other in the contest 
for supremacy; and what are their elements? On the one 
side we have the glorious national union republican party. 
The national convention at Cincinnati spoke with no uncer- 
tain voice. The nomination there made means that this 
country shall continue to be a nation; it means that every 
citizen of the United States shall be free, not in name only 
but in reality; it means protection to the humblest individual 
in the expression of his political opinions and in the exercise 
of his political rights; it means the education and elevation 
of the toiling and struggling masses of the people, and it 
means the establishment upon a sure and firm foundation of 
all the results of the war for the preservation of this union. 
In the national convention at Cincinnati what do we behold? 
Patriots of the dark class of our countrymen freely consult- 
ing with patriots of the light class for the best interests of 
the nation. There no false ideas in regard to color contracted 
the minds of our noble representatives. They met together 
upon a common level as free American citizens, striving for 
the welfare of our glorious republic. The nominees of that 
convention were that gallant general and noble statesman 
General Rutherford B. Hayes, for the presidency of the 



14 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. W1NSMITII. 

United States, and that statesman without fear and without 
reproach the Hon. William A. Wheeler, for the vice presi- 
dency. For the union, for freedom and equal rights to all 
men, General Rutherford B. Hayes toiled and struggled and 
freely shed his blood. During the war he was nominated for 
congress, hut what whs his reply? "Thanks, I have other 
business just now. Any man who would leave the army at 
this time to electioneer for congress ought to be scalped." 
The Hon. William A. Wheeler, of New York, republican 
nominee for the vice-presidency, is a statesman of great intel- 
lectual capacity, a pure patriot, and noble champ ; on of free- 
dom and equal rights to nil men. 

Now let us reverse the picture. What do we behold on 
the other side? A democratic convention at St. Louis. 
There not a single representative of the dark class was 
allowed to invade the sacred presence. The nominations 
there made were made by white men and lor white men only. 
And who are the nominees? S. J. Tilden for the presidency 
and T. A. Hendricks for the vice presidency. And who is 
S. J. Tilden? We will let the Hon. Horace Greeley answer. 
Mr. Greeley, in speaking of Tilden's connection with the 
great frauds of Tammany and the democracy throughout the 
empire state, said: '"You, S. J. Tilden, not merely by silence 
but by positive assumption, have covered these frauds with 
the mantle of your respectability. On the principle that the 
receiver is as bad as the thief, you are as deeply implicated in 
them to-day as though your name were Tweed, O'Brien or 
Oakey Hall." Tilden, the boon companion of W. M. 
Tweed, the champion thief of the age, the democratic nomi- 
nee for the presidency of the United States! The democratic 
nominee for the vice-presidency is T. A. Hendricks, a knight 
of the golden circle, a traitor to the union in the hour of 
greatest peril. Out of his own mouth let him be condemned. 
On the 16th of February, 1866, he said, in the United States 
senate: "We do not propose to let the negroes vote. lam 
free to say that I do not want to make any of them voters. 
We are not of the same race. We are so different that we 
ought not to compose one political community." T. A 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WIXSMITII. 15 

Hendricks, a narrow minded, malignant and selfish white 
liner, the democratic nominee for the vice-presidency of the 
United States. 

My countrymen, the great question presented by the two 
political parties in the United States to-day is whether our 
fellow-citizens of the dark class have rights which the light 
class is bound to respect. The republican party of the nation 
says they have. The democratic party; by its entire course 
since the war ended, says tlwy have not. Let us show how 
unfounded is this democratic prejudice against our fellow- 
citizens of the dark class. The revolutionary war with Eng- 
land found the colored as we'l as white soldiers fighting side 
by side in the struggle for liberty and independence. Who 
does not remember the history of Crispus Attucks, the noble 
colored hero who poured out his life's blood for American 
freedom at Boston on the 5tii of March, 1770. "Don't 
hesitate! Come on ! AY e will drive these British minions 
out of Boston!" Mere the last words of this martyr to Ame- 
rican liberty. .In the war of 1812 the colored soldiers helped 
to fight the battles of our country both by land and sea, and 
we find that Major-General Andrew Jackson, the hero of 
New Orleans, acknowledged their services in the highest 
terms of praise, for addressing them on the 18th of Decem- 
ber, 1814, he said: "Soldiers, the president of the United 
States shall be informed of your conduct on the present 
occasion, and the voices of the representatives of the Ameri- 
can nation shall applaud your valor as your general now 
praises your ardor." In the late war thousands of colored 
soldiers fell on the field of battle, fighting for liberty and the 
union. The republican party of the nation acknowledged 
the noble services of the dark soldiers. Now, what was the 
course pursued by the confederate congress in regard to the 
colored men? McCabe, in his life of General Lee, says: 
"The act of the confederate congress authorized President 
Davis to accept such slaves as the masters might choose to 
put into the military service. In short no inducement was 
to be offered to the negro. He was to be forced to fight for 
his own captivity." This, my countrymen, was the solemn 



1(3 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WIKSMITH. 

act of the confederate congress, although General Lee said 
"the colored men furnish a more promising material than 
many armies of which we read in history which owed their 
efficiency to discipline alone. I think those who are em- 
ployed should be freed. It would be neither just nor wise, 
in mv opinion, to require them to serve as slaves." \\ hat 
has been the course of the democratic party since the war 
ended in reference to citizens of the dark class? That party 
has been forced at the point of the bayonet to accept the 
results of the war, but has it adopted them? The democratic 
leaders have all the while said to their followers "agree 
among yourselves that you will not employ any one who 
votes the radical ticket." What a silly and monstrous pro- 
position! It is suggested by minds festering with feudal 
tyranny and medieval barbarity. These democratic leaders 
have thus attempted the daring anachronism of establishing 
a system of serfdom or peonage in the nineteenth century 
upon the debris of slavery. They would transform into 
despots the latifundium holders, who would trample upon the 
dearest rights of the poor laborers. They would destroy the 
morals of the one class and the love of country of the other. 
What a spectacle would have been presented to the world by 
the immortal Franklin being compelled, as an apprentice, to 
vote at the behest of some besotted employer! The owner of 
property is not always a patriot and a wise man, while on the 
other hand the laborer may be very patriotic and intelligent. 
But why would these democratic leaders incorporate the dis- 
graceful farce of allowing the laboring men to vote at all? 
Why not let the property holders vote for them? This, it 
would seem, would simplify the case very much. The pro- 
position of these democratic leaders is shocking to humanity. 
As well might the attempt be made by property owners to 
dictate to their employees what their religious opinions should 
be as to attempt to deprive them of the liberty of the elective 
franchise. The constitution of the United States guarantees 
freedom alike in the expression of both. Do the democratic 
leaders presume that the sole object of the republican party in 
conferring the elective franchise upon men of the dark class 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WISSMITH. 17 

was to enable them to vote the satellites of the democracy into 
office and power? Do not the democratic leaders admit that 
men of the dark class constitute a large part of the wealth 
and intelligence of South Carolina, and by far the greatest 
part of the labor of the state? Yet look at the democratic 
ticket. Upon it we see not a single representative of liie dark 
class, although that class has a majority of thirty thousand 
voters in South Carolina Why do the democratic leaders 
not acknowledge the rights of citizens of the dark class? 
Will they not admit that all men have descended from the 
same common ancestor? Hear the noble words of the 
inspired apostle, after the celestial light had flashed into his 
soul, when he stood in the midst of the Areopagin, sur- 
rounded by the sages and philosophers of Athens, "God 
hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on 
all the face of the earth." Hear the enunciation of the father 
of the English common law: "We are taught by holy writ 
that there is one couple of ancestors belonging to us all, from 
whom the whole race of mankind is descended. The obvi- 
ous and undeniable consequence is that all men are in some 
degree related to each other." The continental sages of 
America re-echoed in Independence Hall, one hundred years 
ago, the immortal declaration "all men are created equal." 
Under Lincoln and Grant and Sherman this great truth stands 
forth a noble realization, though it has been sprinkled with the 
blood of tens of thousands of the heroes who battled in the 
cause of freedom and equal rights to all men. The thoughtful 
student of history can never for one moment doubt the high 
capacities of men of the dark class. He sees Osiris and 
Sesostris leading their countrymen to deeds of valor and 
glory. He beholds them passing over the Caucasus and the 
dark stream of the Don to teach European Thrace that they 
were the kings of kings. He sees them driving eastward 
their chariot steeds to slake their thirst in the far Ganges. 
He beholds the soldierly qualities and high military renown 
of those dark generals of antiquity Hamilcar, Asdrubal and 
Hannibal. He sees Masanissa, a Numidian general, second in 
3 



18 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSMITH. 

command to Publius Cornelius Scipio, gaining brilliant vic- 
tories. He beholds Lucius Septimius Severus, an African 
bom, Roman emperor. He sees men of the dark class mem- 
bers of the British parliament and of the French assembly. 
In tracing the pages of history the philosophical historian is 
impressed with the fact that throughout all ages intellect and 
moral worth have been the tests of advancement and promo- 
tion, without regard to external circumstances of hue or con- 
dition. And shall it not be ;>o in America, in this the 
nineteenth century — in this the land consecrated to freedom 
and equal rights to all men? The republican party of the 
nation savs that it shaU be so. But, ah! the leaders of the 
democratic party my that because men of the dark class form 
a part of the body politic the governments are corrupt! 
What will these leaders say in reference to the testimony of 
Governor McNutt, of Mississippi? In his message he says: 
"Thirteen tax collectors are in default for the year 1838 in 
the sum of $23,000, and twenty-one in the sum of $32,000 
for the taxes of 1839." What will these leaders say in refer- 
ence to the Yazoo fraud in Georgia? The Georgia legisla- 
ture was bribed to sell a part of the public domain. Sparks, 
in his history, the "Memories of Fifty Years," thus speaks 
of the infamy of the act: "Jackson, heading the new legisla- 
ture and the indignant public, proceeded in procession to the 
public square where the law and the fagots were piled. 
Addressing the assembled multitude, he denounced the men 
who had voted for the law as bribed villains, those who had 
bribed them and the governor who had signed it. He 
declared that fire from heaven only could sanctify the indig- 
nation of God and man in consuming the condemned record 
of accursed crime. Then with a Promethean glass condens- 
ing the sun's rays he kindled the flame which consumed the 
records containing the hated Yazoo act." I have cited these 
instances to show that corruption is not alone incident to the 
governments in which men of the dark class form a part of 
the body politic. I do most solemnly condemn fraud and 
corruption in the administration of government wherever 
existing. Republican officials who have betrayed their trusts 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WTNSM1TH. 19 

are amenable to the laws, and justice will surely overtake 
them. lam here to advocate the noble and enduring princi- 
ples of equality and justice, upon which the republican party 
is founded. If the government is placed in the hands of the 
democratic party is there any assurance that the rights and 
liberties of the toiling and struggling masses of the people 
will be respected? Let me cite an instance in the history of 
the late confederate states. MeCabe, in his Life of General 
Lee, says: "It would have been some comfort to the men in 
the confederate army to see the government meet iis obliga- 
tions, and a still greater comfort to have been able to scud 
the money to those who were starving at home; yet this was 
denied them. President Davis and his aids drew their pay 
promptly, but the men in the trenches were supposed to have 
no use for money. Meanwhile their families were starving." 
My countrymen, let not the democratic leaders again delude 
\ou. The triumph of the democratic party would bring 
strife, dissension and civil discord upon our fair land, and the 
palsying gloom of black despair would settle down upon us. 
Class distinctions would be revived and a fierce struggle to 
overcome all the beneficent results of the late war would at 
once be inaugurated. 

I would here say a word to those whose inclination is to 
come into the republican party but who have been deterred by 
fears of what is called social ostracism. Ostracism! What is 
that? Remember, my friends, the ostracism of the virtuous 
Socrates and of Aristides the just. But you will find that the 
Athenians, repenting of their cruelty, punished the murderers 
of the former with death, and recalled the latter to posts of 
the highest honor in the state, banishing into eternal exile his 
dastardly calumniators. Subject, my friends, your motives to 
action in regard to your political course, to the approval or 
disapproval of that inward monitor whose utterances are not 
to be disregarded. Do not be driven from the path of duty 
by the combined power of ridicule, opprobium and scorn, the 
dull sneer of the coxcomb or the compassionating shrug of 
the dastard. Possess yourselves with the lofty spirit of 
Alcibiades, who when liis house was surrounded at midnight 



20 ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSMITH. 

bv armed bands of li is calumniators, and set on fire, rushed 
forth, sword in hand, to meet the assailants of his honor. 

Fellow-republicans, the union republican party intends that 
ours shall be a grand continental republic. In the eloquent 
language of Senator Morton, "we have one language, one 
flag and one common destiny." The union republican party 
intends that this union shall be composed of states which can- 
not be destroyed. It intends that this American nation, with 
the French, the English, the German nations, shall draw the 
chariot of civilization abreast, as the ancient steeds drew the 
car of victory. The union republican party of this nation 
has labored in the cause of freedom, so that to-day the sun 
does not shine on any slave in our broad land. We are all 
to-day free American citizens, and what a glorious privilege 
it is to be an American citizen! There is no spot on this 
globe, however remote, where the "starry flag" will not pro- 
tect you While under its sacred folds foreign kings and 
principalities and powers dare not molest you. At home, in 
our own country, the union republican party has declared that 
you shall be also protected in the exercise of all your rights, 
no matter what may be your color or your religious or politi- 
cal opinions. If there be any so blinded by hate and party 
prejudice who would attempt to outrage you and deprive you 
of your rights the heavy hand of the national government, 
like an avenging fury, will be laid upon them. I trust we 
may all be mild and tolerant in the expression and discussion 
of our political opinions. It does appear that there should 
not be greater prejudice in reference to differing political opi- 
nions than in regard to differing religious sentiments. It 
can never be the desire of the true patriot again to see three 
millions of armed soldiers engaged in the work of death. 
The triumphs and blessings of peace are far more pleasant to 
contemplate than the horrors of war, and I would that the 
bright rays of prosperity and happiness may be continually 
shed abroad over our entire country. 

Fellow-republicans, the union republican party of this 
nation, moving forward shoulder to shoulder, will bear to a 
triumphant success next November our nominees for presi- 



ADDRESS OF GENERAL J. C. WINSMITH. 21 

dent and vice-president of the United States, and the union 
republican party of the state of South Carolina will also 
achieve a noble victory for all its nominees on state and con- 
gressional tickets. Under the stars and stripes, under the 
flag of our country, under that banner which symbolizes free- 
doom and equal rights to all men, let U3 all work together as 
one man, using all honorable means for the success of our 
nominees. All the intelligence we have from the great north, 
the great east and the great west, goes to show that the union 
republican party there is united in solid phalanx. Our 
friends there arc doing their whole duty, and they expect 
us to do ours. We cannot, for one moment, think of sur- 
rendering the government of this grand national republic 
into the hands of the democratic party. We must rally with 
the national union republican party to establish upon a /xr.sis 
which never can he shaken freedom and equal rights to all 
men. Our friends at Cincinnati, our friends throughout the 
nation have spoken, and they mean that next November vic- 
tory shall perch upon our banners. On the 4th of March 
next General Rutherford B. Hayes will ascend the steps of 
the capitol as the president of more than forty millions of 
free citizens, and the people of this great continental republic 
will rejoice with loud acclaim at the triumph of freedom and 
unity. Then when the silken folds of our star spangled ban- 
ner wave in triumph over the land of the free and the home 
of the brave — when the deep mouthed cannon announce the 
inauguration of the imposing ceremonies of the day — then 
may we all re-echo the sentiment of one of America's noblest 
patriots and grandest orators, "liberty and union now and 
forever, one and inseparable!"' 



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